


Aftershocks

by Samarkand12



Series: Sparkgate [2]
Category: Girl Genius, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-12-29 20:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18300995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samarkand12/pseuds/Samarkand12
Summary: After Agatha's "fun trip" to see the Stargate, the aftershocks of her jaunt reverberate outwards to encompass the planet...and the galaxy beyond.





	1. Fallen Idol

Ba'al struggled against the gravity-web holding him in place. His tormenter had adjusted his own creation in such a way as to reduce the gravity well to just beyond his captive body. An insidious device in the form of the collar he had once locked about her neck forced his consciousness to the fore. He could not retreat into himself to let his host suffer the tortures she inflicted on him. She had used all the many toys--the acid, the knives, the needles--in his special cabinet on him. Not a single inch of his flesh from toes to crown was left unmarked. He had not even had the oblivion of the sarcophagus to end the horror. His tormentor had skillfully used a healing device to keep him alive far beyond the limits of what even a Goa'uld symbiote could manage. The collar denied him even the final resort of poisoning his host.  
  
She reclined like a true queen upon his own throne. Tight, black leather contrasted with the peach of her skin and the red-gold of her hair. The cowlick that escaped her elaborate coiffure rendered her all the more beautiful for the slight flaw. Ba'al whimpered as he realized what was coming. She always left one particular portion fo him untouched. No. No. Not that again. Please. He begged her with his eyes. He would be her utter, devoted slave doing whatever she commanded if she would relent just this one last time. But as always, she raised that terrible little weapon. She aimed it at a point between his eyes. Then the muzzle of her weapon slowly drifted down until it was aimed just below his navel. Her finger tightened on the trigger--  
  
Ba'al woke up screaming.  
  
Again.  
  
Bottles scattered about his bed crashed onto the floor. Ba'al always had an extensive collection of the finest liquors from across the galaxy. A goblet of wine sipped slowly as one contemplated a blade about to be dropped into a captive in a gravity-web was both a pleasure and useful prop. Guzzling such vintages was for oafs such as Camulus. Ba'al had drowned himself everything available since waking up in the sarcophagus screaming his lungs out. A hangover that even Goa'uld healing could not banish throbbed behind his temples. He ignored the splinters of glass piercing the soles of his feet, healing the wounds with a touch of will. Rubbing his face, he stared into the mirror above the ablutions cabinet. His eyes were bloodshot. His beard was unacceptably scruffy. Sighing, he glanced downward. A certain portion of himself was betraying him once more. He was beginning to truly despise that dream.  
  
Ba'al groomed himself into a semblance of his usual standards of appearance. Many a lesser Goa'uld would whine about lacking attendants to perform such menial labours. Ba'al took the attitude that another person's hands close to him with sharp objects was never worth the risk. Besides, all his lo'taur were dead along with the rest of the crew of this al'kesh. Mar'shak had gathered them in the cargo hold before the gate stored there in case he had lost hold of the one in his queen-to-be's capital. The Jaffa and human slaves had been told they would be returning to a planet in his dominions. His First Prime had then opened the cargo ramp to open space to send them tumbling out to eventually burn up in this world's atmosphere. A loyal First Prime, was Mar'shak. He had carried Ba'al to the sarcophagus before collapsing of his own wounds. Upon awakenng, he had carried out Ba'al's orders to dispose of any witnesses. Mar'shak had been granted a swift, painless death of a staff-weapon fired point blank at the back of his head. Inconvenient. But Ba'al wanted to be sure no-one outside this solar system knew about what had befallen him.   
  
Ba'al checked once again that all was accounted for and intact.  
  
An extremely cold shower before dressing in a fine leather doublet and trousers revived him somwhat. Ba'al descended from a bedchamber reeking of wine and vomit to the solar below. His chambers in the al'kesh that had been parked in low planetary orbit under a cloak for escape purposes was in the pyramid atop the main hull. All the al'kesh in a Goa'uld's fleet maintained such quarters should a so-called god choose to pick such and such a vessel for a voyage. Ba'al had personally piloted the assault ship to a concealed spot deep in the mountain range that occupied the southern pole of this world. The peaks here rose a third higher than those in the range dividing that subcontinent to the east of Ra's main domain. A glacial gorge where snowstorms constantly raged provided cover that let him keep the shields up instead of the cloak. Ba'al spent a little time brewing a cup of _khafe_ to brace himself for the task at hand. He sighed as his symbiote-self basked in the almost-narcotic stimulation of the drink when it passed his host's brain-blood barrier. Qetesh had been currying a worrying amount of favor gifting the _khafe_ bean to more senior Goa'uld. Half the reason he had gone to the trouble of this expedition was the strong possibility that this planet was the source of such a valuable good. It would have been a satisfying victory: driving Qetesh into his arms and securing the _khafe_ for the price of an obsolete warship and a few al'kesh.  
  
Then She had ruined it all.  
  
Ba'al clenched his jaw. No. One must be brutally ruthless in such matters. He had allowed himself to lapse into the more theatrical and bombastic habits of his fellow System Lords. Why not? He had watched her procession winds its way up to the pyramid through the holographic display in the pel'tak. It had seemed a delicious bit of irony to take tribute meant for Qetesh for himself. It was to have been a bit of indulgence to celebrate his imminent victory over the highly-annoying daughter of Ra. The girl had indeed shown the proper mix of submission and intelligence at first. He valued that in prospective lo'taur. Her show of defiance had actually enticed him even more. It would have been sweet to train her. Ba'al closed his eyes as mortification swept over him. It had been that sort of thinking that had missed what was, in retrospect, the honeyed words of suppressed rage that had been barely concealed in her "submission".  
  
More bluntly, she had played him like a bloody fiddle.  
  
Not merely that, he told himself. She had come _prepared_ for a meeting with Qetesh. Ba'al summoned up a holographic projection above the solar's table of the feed from the reconnaissance drone. It hovered high above the planet at a point above the great bay that Qetesh's vassals called the Goblet. Advanced imaging systems that Ba'al had worked on himself focused on the capital. He had sent the drone ahead to perform an extensive survey of Qetesh's Jewel the day his pocket fleet exited hyperspace. Everything had appeared quite normal. There has been no sign of defenses more serous that staff-cannon emplacements about the walls of the estate. Now, the view of the city showed considerable changes. The pyramid and the obsolete warship he had spared for this long-range expedition had sunk deep into a crater that had filled with water from the decorative river of her palace-estate. The new lake steamed from heat released from whatever device she had used that had _conjured up an active volcano as a strategic denial weapon._ One small enough to been have concealed in that palaquin he should have blown to flinders on sight. More worrying was the fleet of lighter-than-air vessels that were lowering what had to be weapons emplacements around the walls of the city. He had no idea what they were--  
  
The drone registered the sudden massive ionization about the city before a lightning bolt that would have seriously challenged a proper ha'tak's shields--albeit only in atmosphere--speared upwards.  
  
Ba'al thanked himself that he had not stayed in orbit.  
  
The other half of the drone's spy-systems were dedicated to the cluster of islands at the border of the open sea and the Goblet. Ba'al had detected the human settlement there on the initial survey before the assault. It had been an unpleasant surprise to see an unacceptably advanced human civilization on a planet supposed to be under proper Goa'uld domination. He had determined at the time that it was a distraction from his goals. The timing of herding Qetesh in a panic to her supposedly-safe refuge was delicate. He had initiated an assault with his fleet on her holdings while activating the virus that disabled the dialing device of the gates in said territory for any address save one. He had had to swiftly secure the gate of this world to greet her properly before a suitably humiliating captivity would begin. The newcomers had been deemed little threat--likely nothing more sophisticated than chemical slug-throwing weapons, lighter than air capability with some atmospheric craft, and powered ocean vessels.  
  
He should have examined them more closely. The energy-signature from that fortress in that settlement that occupied the tip of the most settled islands was most unusual.  
  
Ba'al quivered in fury. He had come here to catch Qetesh in an act of revenge for defying him. A spoiled brat of a daughter of Ra who could never hold onto territory without the old Supreme System Lord's indulgence should not have cost him ten thousand Jaffa. Instead, a snip of a human woman had cheated him of everything while fooling him as if he were newly-emerged from the pouch. No, not a "snip". Something other than hatred swept through him. There was an old word bandied about the Goa'uld: _hok'tar_ , hosts that exhibited extraordinary abilities akin to the race whose technology the Goa'uld had scavenged to support their rise to dominance. Nirrti was particularly obsessed with the subject. Ba'al had never put much stock in the pursuit of such a host. His own skills in the sciences and politics were sufficient for his purposes with a normal host. This woman was obviously a hok'tar with abilities that were still not quite clear. She merited study rather than causing the sun of this system to supernova.  
  
After enough study, Ba'al would torture everyone she cared for while training her until she was a nicely-compliant little lo'taur who--  
  
\--- _would place her boot on his neck as he gazed in denied need at the expanse of thigh above the boot-top, pinning him in place as the little energy weapon aimed once again at his--_  
  
There must be some liquor left on this ship somewhere. 


	2. Queen of Less Than She Surveys

Kali and the Wyrm battled for an eternity upon a plain of skulls beneath a sky of blood-red stars. _Insolent little cow._ The coils of the Wyrm tightened around a throat. _Backstabbing wash-out._ Six arms carved great wounds in the Wyrm's hide with dagger and sickle and pizza cutter. _You decry me, pathetic failure of her own mother's legacy?_ Fangs dripped poison as a maw sought to close on Kali's head. _I stab from the front, you bitch, and at least I know how to keep an ally._ Two hands tossed aside sharp implements to begin choking the Wyrm. _I am a god! I have seen worlds burn beneath my feet! Milions chant my name!_ The Wyrm shrieked when a tulwar chopped its head off. Kali threw the still-screaming head into a fire fueled by bones.  
  
_My body for now, bitch._  
  
Bang's eyes fluttered open. All around her were the softly-glowing panels of the sarcohpagus. She could sense the energy fields beaming _elan vital_ into her exhausted body. Bang punched the lid off with inhuman strength fueled by panic. It had been this wacky healing engine that had screwed over both of them, bitch and pirate queen, before Qetesh had realized what it had been doing. The inevitable harem girls who were waiting around to greet the great and annoying Qetesh scattered as fragments of the lid nearly cut them to pieces. Ordinarily, Bang would have enjoyed that. Nothing like an early-morning torture session to get you going. But unlike Qetesh, Bang actually knew there were times and places where eviscerating someone wasn't productive. Strange but true.  
  
Bang did the imperious bitch act to keep the cowering handmaidens thinking she was their beloved goddess. Yuck. Bang had been stern at times when commanding her crew. You had to maintain discipline. Acting stuck-up all the time? Please. Bangladesh Dupree thought that it was best to live life with all its setbacks with a song on one's lips and a knife plunged into someone's heart. Or liver. Or any organ, really, they were all good. That philosophy had not been of much use for the past twelve years. Bang had not believed much in the kharma/dharma crap of her ancestors. It turned out that the old Hindu proverbs had some truth to them. She had been eating crow for a long, long time. So had Qetesh, actually.   
  
"My goddess." A shaven-headed man with a distinctly high voice sidled into the room. "Are you awak----aaaaaah!"  
  
"You. I remember you." Bang slipped the blade up one of his nostrils. "You're Khefu. You were right beside her when she looked me over."  
  
"If you recall, host," Khefu said. "I advised her to pass you over and put you into the fighting pits."  
  
"That's why I haven't doodled on your frontal lobes. Yet." Bang patted his cheek. "Who do you serve, right here, right now?"  
  
"You, oh great and glorious...er..."  
  
"Name's Dupree." Bang grinned. It was great to see them sweat. "Now, be honest with me. There was a strawberry blonde, yea tall, cowlick, last seen beating the hell out of Ba`al. Bring her to me."  
  
"The Lady Heterodyne is engaged--" A massive crack of thunder came from outside. "She is, ah, testing the defenses she had gifted to this city. I am told by the demons that serve her that to interrupt her would be folly."  
  
"Jaegers." Bang stepped back. "Give me a tactical breakdown of what's out there."  
  
"We are being occupied." Khefu dabbed his nose with a sleeve of his tunic. "Her demons are everywhere. Several vessels have arrived bearing many of her servants. The populace see her as a goddess of war. All the other priests save me are dead. And most of the handmaidens are praying for the talking cat who has been spying on me for two years!"  
  
"You really need a hug." Bang spread her arms. "Come to mamma. I promise I won't slide a knife into your ribs."  
  
"You are lying," Khefu said.  
  
"Pretty much. I hear it’s the thought that counts." Bang cupped a hand to one ear. "Hear that? If you listen really close, you can hear a snake-bitch realizing how completely screwed she is."  
  
"You are as much a prisoner as she is," Khefu said.  
  
"No, I am the helpless victim that needs rescue." Ugh. Maybe she could gargle some carbolic acid to get the taste out of her mouth. "So, get out there and tell Ms. Heterodyne to put some time in her agenda book for Captain Bangladesh Dupree."  
  
Khefu was already out the door before Bang had flung the dagger at him. Hah. This not-quite-a-guy would be almost as fun as teasing Klaus. She closed her eyes. Klaus. Dammit, you sour old appletree, you had better be alive. Nah. Klaus was probably around making life tough for Gil. Nothing could put down Klaus. If Gil's girl didn't have the chops, then Klaus would be able to do his brain coring thing. He had to have that quality of life thing down by now. He had told her he was close before it had all gone to shit. Then she could sign on with him again. She would never find out who had destroyed her base what with being in another universe or something. So she would never be tempted to leave his service. They could _hunt them down every single one of them freaking snakes stab stab stab burn crush rend tear her body stolen her will crushed so strong so old watching as the bitch had done countless massacres and twisted sex acts and she hadn't been able to enjoy it stuck down in the dark howling--_  
  
All the handmaidens were gone.  
  
Damn, she needed to carve up someone.  
  
_Oh, we will. Starting with the insolent girl who has seized my world!_  
  
Back in the hole, you.  
  
Bang washed up an ewer of water and a rag. The suite she was in was Qetesh's private chambers. Everything was trashed. Bang sort of remembered there being a hell of a lot of fighting before she had been put into the sarcophagus. She had been stabbing on automatic pretty much since she had popped through the gate. The handmaidens had at least laid out some clothes. Bang rummaged through them until she found something that wasn't made for a tasteless slut. _As if you are any better._ Hey, bitch, I wear that stuff for play time. Not all the time. Good thing that Qetesh had adopted some of Bang's dress sense. No airship captain's uniform. But there was a gorgeous crimson sari with cloth-of-gold edges with gems worked into the embroidery. Flashy but classy. She would wear it a lot when she ran this planet. _MY planet!_ Pirate. Queen. Can't get mom's old kingdom back. So I'll have to steal yours. Qetesh's reaction was everything Bang could have hoped for.  
  
Bang drifted over to the window.   
  
Oh.  
  
Bang stared at the bell jars, the impalement spikes, the Catherine wheels, the--was that a collage mural of entrails?  
  
Sweet Shiva, Bang knew that Gil's girl could get her murder on.  
  
\--don'tthinkofmerrygorounds, dontthinkofmerrygorounds--  
  
This? This was _Mongol_ -levels of vindictive slaughter. Some of those Jaffa were still wriggling.  
  
Niiiiiiiiiice.  
  
A boot-step scuffed on the threshold. Bang whirled about with hand extended by instinct. Dammit. No kara'kesh. Gil's girl stood between two of the jaegers that Bang had seen at the circus they thought they had ambushed her at. Big one with the horn and the tri-halberd, green-furred one with the throwing knives. No, this wasn't Gil's girl. She was older now. Tough. Tough enough maybe even to challenge Bang a little. She had on a green corset over a shirtwaist that had the riveting of brigandine. Draped over her shoulders was a rifle-green greatcoat. Boiled leather breeches and cavalry boots on her legs would be tough to get a point through. She walked with purpose and strength to Bang.  
  
"Hey." The Heterodyne laid her hands on Bang's shoulders. "It's going to be okay."  
  
Bang completely embarrassed herself.  
  
"Great, now I have to kill all the witnesses." Bang wiped her eyes with a fold of the sari.  
  
"Iz hokay, we see notink," Green-Knives said. "We heff terrible memories."  
  
"They'll keep quiet, won't they?" The Heterodyne said. "How did you end up here? You were last seen in a section of Castle Wulfenbach outside the transdimensional shift bubble."  
  
"About twenty meters down the corridor," Bang said. "I almost didn't make it. I had to jump. Ended up in the Goblet treading water about twelve years ago. Yada yada, they dragged me to Qetesh who was looking for a new body. Lucky me.”  
  
"Being at the edge of the transition could have introduced a variant spatio-temporal vector,” the Heterodyne said. “You must have been so worried for Gil.”  
  
"Him and Klaus," Bang said. "I was not going to be late like at the hospital."  
  
The Heterodyne looked away.  
  
Oh.  
  
"Was it quick?" Bang asked, blinking rapidly.  
  
"Crushed under a section of hull that was on fire," the Heterodyne said. "He, ah, is free of his burden."  
  
"Good. He deserved to be out from that bitch's thumb." Bang glared at the Jaegers. "Lucrezia is out of her head. She had better be."  
  
"Ho, yez." Ram's-Horn smirked. "She is very nize undt safe in de dark place she neffer come out again."  
  
"Other-free." The Heterodyne tapped her temple. "Otherwise, having sex with Gil would be so very, very awkward. There's room for three in my bed, not four."  
  
"Finally! Gil got some." Bang laughed. "So who's the--wait, not Prince How Dare You?"  
  
"Tarvek is my second consort, yes" the Heterodyne said. "Kids, too. I have a daughter who will love to meet the Auntie Bang she never got a chance to meet."  
  
"Don't let me near any of them with her in here." Bang stepped back. "Whatever you do, do not trust her. She betrays everyone."  
  
"We will extract her." The Heterodyne narrowed her eyes. "I hope you are listening, Qetesh. We can either do this the hard way or the easy way. I will provide a suitable host reconstituted from the bones of one of the handmaidens killed in the attack. You will vacate--"  
  
"It's going to be harder than that," Bang said. "Something went wrong a year after she took me. Think it was Gil's anti-wasp treatment and that sarcophagus. There isn't a symbiote in me."  
  
"Then how is she still active in you?" The Heterodyne asked.  
  
"See, there's this thing called a 'harcesis'..." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those unfamiliar with Stargate lore: a "harcesis" is a forbidden practice among the Goa'uld of procreating a child between a male-hosted and female-hosted Goa'uld. The result has the same genetic memory of the Goa'uld--as a symbiote does, of all that the mother and father knew--in a human form. This is considered an extreme threat because that child could later father or mother more such harcesis without Goa'uld intervention. thus creating rivals to their power among their slave subjects. What happened to Bang is analogous though not the same...


	3. If You Need Anything, Just Scream

"These are almost exactly regulation." Sam posed in the mirror. "They even got the rank insignia and buttons right."  
  
"Thank Doctor Jackson," Violetta said. "He has a real eye for detail about clothes."  
  
"It's more due to his anthropological work." Sam straightened the female service cap on her head. "He once told me that he treated the air force like studying a tribal society to better fit in. Costume and status symbols are a part of that."  
  
"He should love the jaegers," Violetta said. "They have some fun ideas about clothes. Especially hats. But you don't have to loot your outfits off of a fallen enemy. My cousin runs a boutique in Mechanicsburg."  
  
"That must have been where your people were trained," Sam said.  
  
"Knowing how to stitch and sew fine clothes helps for a slave-attendant cover," Violetta said. "Also, there are things you can do with needles. Thread too, though you have to braid it up some."  
  
"My compliments to your people," Sam said. "Should I send along a tip?"  
  
"This is on my lady," Violetta said. "You are my lady's guests. Not her 'hehehehe, guests'."  
  
Sam maintained the polite, friendly smile on her lips until Violetta left the tent. Mother of Almighty God Above, being around these people was an exercise in constant horror. The colonel's advice ran through her mind yet again. _They are friendly. They seem like they want to help. But just remember what that woman ordered her troops to do. Never get too comfortable around them_. The Mechanicsbuirgers made it very easy to follow the last pearl of wisdom. She was comfortable being around the short, sarcastic woman in purple and grey who was also combination of JSOC and CIA Special Operations Group. The colonel himself had a history of black ops that he talked about very little for good reason. Sam could serve around such people as a matter of course. Then one of the Mechanicsburgers would say up a line right out of the Addams Family.  
  
_Remember what she ordered her troops to do_. Sam worked hard to ignore the evidence of the inherent brutality of their hosts when she stepped out of the tent. The same "people" who worked for Violetta had worked up several tents for SG-1 to have their own camp. There were one each for the team, a larger one for a mess and meeting place, and another with field showers and latrines. There was even a flagpole in the middle with a perfect reproduction of Old Glory fluttering against an alien sky. You could pretend it was a little bit of America. That is, until you looked past the tents to the rows of executed Jaffa. The impalement pikes and Catherine wheels mounted on posts were bad. At least the occupants were dead. It was the bell jars that got to her. The Jaffa in the economy-sized insect killing jars clawed at the glass as the heat and dehydration took their toll.  
  
They were stuck with these people for the forseeable future. The planet's stargate and DHD were probably hitting the MoHo boundary about now. The pyramid-ship and the two most intact al'kesh had gone down with the gate as well. The crashed al'kesh currently under guard by several jaegers was a write-off. She had been permitted to examine it. While fragmentary, Jolinar's knowledge had told her that the combination of impact and sabotage had rendered it unflyable. Maybe the hyperdrive and certain other key components could be salvaged. The rest was only fit for study. Even if the gate was here, she would still have plenty of time for that study. The Diasporan scientists had determined that they had shifted into this reality to a decade before the attack on Earth. Back home, the past-selves of SG-1 were about to gate to the co-ordinates that would turn out to be one of Apophis' motherships.  
  
Study. That was the brilliant, shining silver lining of coming up short and off target in the temporal jump. SG-1 had finally hit the jackpot that Stargate Command had been praying for ever since Apophis had come through the gate. The air still held a hint of ozone from the ionization devices that the Lady Heterodyne could conjure up lightning bolts that were the junior siblings to the Io-Jupiter flux tube. She had watched the Lady Heterodyne perform medical miracles healing the wounded and reviving the dead. So many of the natives bore the stitches of being patched together from disparate body parts. Sam had had a chance to talk with one of her assistants--one Hexalina Snaug, very pleasant--about the sciences of these Sparks. Much of it was nightmarish. Thank God that things like hive-engines and slaver wasps had been left behind in their home reality. The rest promised to advance Earth technology by at least a century.  
  
With blurring wings, a flittercopter landed on six insectile mechanical legs. Sam couldn't help gawking. The world of the Diasporans was very much like Star Wars if Verne had been writing the script instead of Lucas. The flittercopters that the Diasporans used as STOL aircraft were dragonfly-shaped craft about the size of a Blackhawk with four wings that could either lock for level flight or act as ornithopters. Two swiveling nacelles with shrouded pusher-props on the "thorax" provided either extra lift or thrust for fixed-wing mode. It was a goofy, dingbat design right out of a Gernback pulp magazine cover. It worked. Sam craned her head back to gaze up at the green-and-gold behemoth with golden trilobites worked into its envelope floating above. Her taste in aircraft usually ran to the sleek and fast. But what lover of aviation did not have a sneaking affection for the old zeppelins of the early 20th century. In their reality, the Diasporans had masters lighter-than-air flight when De Roziere had invented the first dirigible. A hundred years of development had created this monster: a rigid airship that had to be a third-again the size of the _Hindenberg_.  
  
Ooof.  
  
Sam stepped back to apologize to whomever she had backed into with her head back like a girl at her first airshow. Good thing her head was already back. The man she had bumped had to be close to seven feet tall. He seemed almost as wide with muscles that bulged through his short-sleeved blue-and-white sailor's blouse. Perched atop windblown, messy brown hair was a salt-crusted naval cap with a brass badge on it: a winged castle keep over a fouled anchor. Blue denim bellbottoms over boat shoes completed the nautical look. Brown eyes flicked up and down her. They might have lingered a bit on her legs. Sam tended to stick with a skirt for her uniform instead of pants because of her dad. Jacob Carter had been conservative enough that he had thought women should stick to skirts as a uniform. So she had stuck with the more feminine take on the Air Force uniform out of respect for the general's opinions. Raising a brow, Sam returned the up-and-down herself. Interesting. He did not seem much older than herself. But he carried himself like a man more Jack or General Hammond's age.  
  
"My apologies, Captain Carter." His English was flawless besides a hint of Eastern Europe in his accent.   
  
"My fault. I thought I outgrew that sort of gawking." Sam peered at him closer. "You were the one aboard the crashed al'kesh with the bear."  
  
"Guilty. Ernst Schlemiel at your service," he said. "Captain, explorer, privateer, and frequent crasher of airships. That was why they never let me near the wheelhouse of Castle Wulfenbach."  
  
"Another airship like this one?" Sam asked.  
  
"Much larger. It was a kilometer long," Ernst said. "Slow as a mimmoth in peanut butter, mind. It was the capital of the Wulfernbach Empire."  
  
"How on earth did it stay up?" Sam said. "Airships do grow more efficient in terms of buoyancy the larger they are. It still beggars the imagination a lighter-than-air craft that size."  
  
"It stayed up, they say, because it was too terrified of the Baron to land," Ernst said. "A great man, Baron Wulfenbach. Entirely too dour for my taste. The affairs of state weighed upon him greatly."  
  
"What little I have heard about him speaks of a harsh but respected man," Sam said. "He had a towering intellect."  
  
"A towering fool at times, too." Ernst touched his cap-badge. "Still, I respected the old man enough to wear the sigil of his house in his memory."  
  
"If you served on this Castle Wulfenbach, I'd love to hear some technical details," Sam said. "My field is theoretical astrophysics with an emphasis on wormhole dynamics. I do have more than a passing interest in aeronautical engineering."  
  
"If you would not mind trading knowledge," Ernst said, "I have a paper on Robur Heterodyne's work on temporal mechanics at it pertains to transdimensional harmonic shifts through space."  
  
"I understood none of that, but I am definitely interested in finding out," Sam said, grinning ear to ear. "Spark?"  
  
"Some of the gift, yes." Ernst grinned back. "It is in my cabin on the galley. We could see some of this city on the walk there."  
  
"I will have to inform my commanding officer," Sam said. "Right now, we are all at loose ends until Lady Heterodyne has time to speak with us."  
  
"I shall wait here in hopes your oberst agrees."  
  
Sam hurried off.  
  
Finally, she could talk some shop with someone in this madhouse who sounded normal. 


	4. Making the Grade

As claws ripped open a cheek, Teal`c thought of how much he had missed this.  
  
He may have broken from the ranks of the Jaffa. He may kill those who once might have fought by his side. Yet he missed being among his own kind. The Tau'ri of SG-1 could never replace what he had once had among his brothers and sisters. He loved them all: Jack O'Neill for his courage and devotion to freedom; Samantha Carter for her brilliance and determination; Daniel Jackson for his wisdom and the generosity to forgive one who had taken his wife. But they were not Jaffa. There was a distance between he and his team mates that no amount of effort on the part of Jack O'Neill to educate him in Tau'ri culture could bridge. They lacked the songs and customs that had shaped Teal'c more than any talk of gods.  
  
The Jaegers were not Jaffa. They were the opposite of the Jaffa in every way. They fought without any discipline. They mocked any of the dignity that was the ideal of a warrior of his kind. Their extravagant garb was a riot of disorder compared to the armor of the Jaffa legions that bore no adornment save that of the Goa'uld. They joked about their Heterodynes in ways that would have had a Jaffa slowly executed for weeks. For all that, Teal'c found among them a brotherhood that he had missed since allying with the Tau'ri. Both Jaeger and Jaffa swore undying oaths of loyalty. Unlike the _prim'ta_ that enslaved a Jaffa, the gift of Jaegerhood was an act of devotion that was both sacrifice and ultimate act of freedom.  
  
They had begun seeking him out after he had fought with them against Ba'al's Jaffa. He had not taken part in their rough justice. He had granted his opponents a clean death. Unlike the others, Teal'c did not reprove them for their brutality. He had often ordered the same horrors upon defenseless humans when Apophis had demanded it. He could not be the peroclator calling the stove an equivalent color. At least their cruelties were against a fighting enemy which was guilty of crimes. They had thanked him for "riding" with them and willingly coming to the aid of Agatha Heterodyne. Such was of great value to them. Over the past three days, Jaegers had approached at random asking him many questions: of Jaffa tactics, of the weapons they used, and if they had any "nizer uniforms". He regretted disappointing them on the last point. Last evening, Jenka had come to his tent garbed in purple and breastplate and windscarf tied over her face. She had invited him to endure a hazardous yet great honor.  
  
Vole roared when Teal'c retaliated with a brutal series of lok'nel maneuvers. The white-garbed Jaeger with pale green skin and opal eyes had been the most savage of the Jaegers the night of the slaughter. It was said that he had knelt at Agatha Heterodyne's feet that night to vow once again the oath of fealty to her house. Teal'c was hard-pressed to survive against the onslaught of what was a gruntling; any of the elder jaegers would have destroyed him. Good. It was so difficult to maintain one's skill. The Tau'ri were far too fragile. He moved among them as if they were glass. With Vole, he could unleash himsel fully. The old battle-joy flowed through him as he traded blow for blow with Vole. He found himself roaring to match Vole as he found himself finally being Jaffa once again.  
  
"Enoff!" Vole stumbled back, clutching his throat. "Hyu vin."  
  
"Do not patronize me, Vole." Teal'c spat a tooth into the bloodied earth of the sparring pit.   
  
"Ho, hyu vin fair undt square," Maxim said. "Vot hyu say, brodders undt sisters?"  
  
"TEAL'C! TEAL'C! TEAL'C!"  
  
"Vox jaegeri, vox dei," Jorgi said. "Hyu last three minutes vit a guy who Meester Gil spar vit all the time, hyu no cream-puff."  
  
"Sveethot, everyvun tinks dot hyu earned it," Jenka said. "Undt ve also kick in ze nize uniform so hyu can be spiffy ven hyu is presented to the Mistress."  
  
"Iz hokay to gift dot," Dimo said. "Hyu help save Miz Agatha so de rules are looser."  
  
"Vy no vun giff me some trousers?" Maxim complained.  
  
"Becawse hyu is preening pretty boy vot needs to walk around vit his schlongvurst in the wind for a leetle," Ognian offered.  
  
"Goot point."  
  
"Hokay, Teal'c ov Chulak." Jenka walked over with a pillow with his prize upon it. "Now, hyu heff a _hat_."  
  
Teal'c found himself strangely moved by the simple piece of millinery presented to him. He wore hats as a matter of course when leaving the confines of Cheyenne Mountain. He was told he had quite good taste in them by Tau'ri standard. They were simply means of concealing the golden mark of Apophis on his brow. This was different. It was a statement of respect and belonging from those who he could call fellow warriors. It was a sleek black top hat with a crimson band about the base. Teal'c had picked it from several hats that had been looted yet rejected for poor fit, languishing in the closets of Jaegers. It was of the same style as that worn by the great Tau'ri freer of slaves Abraham Lincoln. The clothing provided for him was presumably "spiffy", A long black greatcoat was accompanied by matching boots and trousers. Beneath is was a jacket that he was told was a "dolman" in crimson with golden braiding. It was nothing he would have chosen to wear. Yet he donned it with the same pride he had once put on his old armor.  
  
There was much rejoicing in the jaeger manner. Teal'c quaffed many a cup of "bog juice" which was not at all the same as the flavored water drink found in the SGC mess. His cheek was bandaged by a Qeteshi woman wearing the hat of her jaeger lover and not much else. There was also a necklace with a golden trilobite at her throat. There were many women among the jaegers now who had found love--or at least affectionate protection--among their demonic saviors. The Jaegerkin were much-welcomed among the people of the palace grounds and the city beyond. Teal'c suspected that those handmaidens not following Krosp north to the Diasporan Archipelago would be taken in the arms of the Jaegerkin.  
  
Indeed, Teal'c thought that Qetesh would be losing many of her subjects. So many of those who had been indoctrinated over the generations by the priesthood now wore the Heterodyne mark. The adoption of a rival "goddess'" sigil so freely in such a shor time was astonishing. Quick conversion to a conquering Goa'uld's cult trappings was routine. It was a matter of survival for most in Goa'uld space. This was a spontaneous act of worship that Teal'c had never seen before. He noticed several Qeteshi being lead by a human in uniform bearing Agatha Heterodyne's mark. They were being lead about in basic marching with crude copies of rifles over their shoulders. Such volunteers were growing. Many of the surviving city guardsmen who had fought with the jaegers in the streets also bore golden trilobites. One had to cultivate a certain political sensibility as a First Prime. There were swift currents moving in these waters.  
  
Teal'c did not often smile.  
  
But he was smiling a touch now as he marched proudly with his _hat_ tipped over one brow.


	5. Pitching In

"These are amazing." Daniel smacked his lips as he licked clean the honey-locust kebab. "The roasted carapace adds some interesting mouth-feel."  
  
"I could handle the 'Abydonian chicken,'" Sam said,waving aside the kebab Daniel offered her. "I draw a hard line at insects."  
  
"Personally, I prefer the Escar-To-Go snails and chips," Ernst said. "Mechanicsburg does wonderful things with snails. The Harvest Festival snail races will be held in two months."  
  
"Make way! Make way for the liberators!" H'iggs called out. The former guardsman they had hired on gently opened a path through the throng with a cudgel. "Make way for the brave souls who defeated Ba'al and stood beside the Heterodyne to save the goddess."  
  
"Party down, my comrades!" Zeetha sat atop H'iggs' shoulders. "Relax, enjoy the coffee, have a grasshopper! Watch the show! Agatha will be here all week."  
  
"Oh, why not." Sam said. "Hand one over, Gunga Dan."  
  
Daniel could not help a small cringe at the team's new nickname for him. He really had been asking for it when he had told Violetta for "something appropriate" when she had asked him for what he wanted to replace the sailor's slops he had been wearing. Daniel had thought he might receive a gentleman's suit with waistcoat and pocketwatch chain. That was what he imagined that the Europans would provide to a visiting academic. However, he had failed to take into account the unique cultural tropes of an alternate 19th Century where Sparks and other derring-do-gooders were as prominent in literature and song as Achilles might have been to ancient Greeks. Appropriate for a galaxy-trotting archaeologist-adventurer who punched out alien gods while romancing princesses on exotic planets was different. It meant a classic Darkest Africa khaki-drill safari jacket and pants, sturdy leather boots, a canvas gunbelt, and a solar helmet.  
  
Thank God it hadn't been a fedora. Jack would never have stopped with the bullwhip jokes.  
  
Well. If he had to go Rider-Haggard, he might as well do it when in the forbidden city of an Egyptian goddess while they were celebrating their equivalent of the Liberation of Paris. Daniel could not help grinning like a fool as he swiveled about to catch everything. This was it. This was what he had suffered years of ridicule for his theories back on Earth. Daniel lifted the camera once more to his eye to capture a bas-relief of Qetesh in her Aspect of Joy. The Diasporan-made camera chugged for a few seconds before popping out a japanned iron plate out the slot in front. The minor example of "sparktech" had miniaturized the old tintype process into a Verne-style Polaroid. The pockets of his safari jacket were stuffed with dozens of the little plates. Some of them would have to be filed under the "spicy" section of his anthropological archives. Qeteshi religious rituals included the sort of activities and combinations that made the Kama Sutra look like a Baptist screed against fornication. Daniel held up the viewfinder to one eye as he focused on a throng of celebrating Qeteshi.  
  
Daniel's fingertip lifted off the shutter button. Oh. They were celebrating around one of _those_. _They_ were apparently a form of punishment that the Lady Heterodyne had adopted from the ruler of the academic city-state where she had grown up. The clinical part of Daniel's mind admired the genius of the bell-jar. If your attitude was that gaol was a training ground for criminals, then the bell-jar was a flexible method of criminal punishment that could range from humiliating to lethal. A short period in one to dry out from public intoxication had the effect of being put into the stocks without the risk of injury from passerby. The graphic, drawn-out demise of those confined for longer was apparently quite popular as a crime-control measure. It was clearly finding favor with the Qeteshi. The only mercy the Jaffa within had had was that his _prim'ta_ had been torn from him and eaten by a Jaeger in front of him before he had been tossed inside. He would die of immune system collapse before the thirst and heat-stroke did him in.  
  
Sighing, Daniel took two snapshots of the scene. It was an important detail of a major local culture. The intelligence analysis section at the SGC would need it as well. He noticed that Sam's right hand had brushed aside her uniform jacket to the holster at her hip. Like the one at his, it carried a zat that Jack had ordered them to carry as they were still on a mission profile. Daniel had overhead her arguing with Jack about insisting on a _coup de grace_ for those Jaffa who had survived the Jaegers. Jack's reply had been short--"you mess with the cubs, don't expect Mamma Bear to treat you with kid gloves." Sam very reluctantly lowered her gun hand before smiling politely at Captain Schlemiel. Daniel heard Zeetha whispering to H'iggs. The former city guardsman lead them down a series of side streets that so happened to avoid any other bell-jars.   
  
The captain's galley was anchored in a large basin within the walls of the city. A large water-gate connected it to the Great River beyond. Daniel had seen the river through binoculars from a vantage point atop the palace complex walls; it was more akin to the vast mouth of the Amazon or Platte than the Nile. Moored in the basin were the gilded barges and personal galleys of the high nobility. Captain Schlemiel's xebec was incongruous in terms of its utilitarian appearance and historical period compared to the Bronze Age vessels about it. His role in the defeat of Ba'al must have won him the status to dock here. There was a small table with pillows about it on the--nautical terminology deserted him--front bit of the ship. Zeetha poured everyone a mug of barley beer from the pitcher on the table while Ernst went below. Daniel sipped the warm beer with relish. His time in Britain had cured him of the American insistence that any beer had to be chilled.  
  
"Here are my notes along with a primer on transdimensional harmonics," Ernst said. "I translated both into English."  
  
"So this was a set-up." Sam cast a half-mocking look at their host. "Bet the beer is drugged. We're going to be shanghaied."  
  
" _I would never do such a thing._ "  
  
"D--coz, she's joking," Zeetha sad. She patted one broad shoulder. "Sorry about that. My cousin had someone who did him wrong that way."  
  
"There was also a more recent incident that shames me," Ernst said. "Hospitality is sacred among the Qeteshi. I abide by this custom."  
  
"I would not mind being shackled down somewhere if it came with this." Sam already had a pencil out marking up the notes. "It would give me time to get up to speed on this transdimensional harmonics."  
  
"Important?" Daniel asked.  
  
"Very. This--this might even unify relativity and quantum mechanics," Sam said.  
  
"You cracked the frame of reference problem?" Ernst leaned close.   
  
"Not myself. Einstein--"  
  
"Aaaaaand they're gone," Zeetha announced. She raised her mug. "More beer for us."  
  
"Huzzah," H'iggs deadpanned.  
  
"You said you were related," Daniel said. He studied Zeetha's golden-toned skin and odd hair color. "May I ask the relationship?"  
  
"Complicated to say the least," Zeetha said with a conspiratorial grin. "We're related through my dad's line--Chump, otherwise known as Klaus Wulfenbach. Gil is my twin."  
  
"Then you are--um, Skiffandrian, yes?"   
  
"Which you never, ever heard of existing on your Earth." Zeetha gazed into her mug. "I already asked Teal'c. He never heard of it either out there."  
  
"Beloved." H'iggs gently laid a hand on her wrist.   
  
"No, Axell. I'm fine." Zeetha down the beer, pouring herself another. "Not going to do something drastic."  
  
"Punch you out before you could," H'iggs said.  
  
"Like to see you try," Zeetha moved every so slightly toward the guardsman.  
  
"Do you two need some time alone?" Daniel asked.  
  
"Nah. We'll save it for later." Zeetha turned her laviscious smile on him. "Unless you use your wiles on me. Rumours are that you are quite the Lothario."  
  
"It's exaggerated." Daniel sunk down in his seat. "There was Shyla--and, um, Hathor, but that was more of a mind-controlled breeding thing--"  
  
"See? I'm simply a warrior-princess helpless against his virile charm." Zeetha hugged H'iggs close. "Quick, hold me back! I can feel it working."  
  
"She's like this all the time," Daniel said.  
  
"Pretty much." H'iggs quietly sipped his beer. "It's a burden some of us have to bear."  
  
"I have no intentions towards you, Princess Zeetha," Daniel said. "I am married."  
  
"Good ones are always taken." Zeetha placed fingertips on her brow. "It's coming to me: an expedition to a distant planet, you saved the villagers, and the chieftain presented you with his daughter as a gift."  
  
"Sha're was presented to me because they thought we were gods." Daniel smiled wistfully. "I never slept with her that night. Afterwards, when I decided to stay on Abydos, we became man and wife. It was a good year."  
  
"Had to leave her behind to fight for Earth?" H'iggs asked.   
  
"Apophis took her as a host for his queen Amaunet," Daniel said. "We had--will have-a day together when I find her on Abydos. But even if we had a gate here, I couldn't save her without causing problems."  
  
"The risk to causality is too great," Sam said.  
  
"I know." Daniel played with his mug. "So I will keep on searching."  
  
"Would you like some help?" Ernst said. "I understand something of the loss you suffered."  
  
"Skiffander might be out there," Zeetha said. "Mind if I tag along, cousin?"  
  
"Could be I might be able to pitch in," H'iggs said.   
  
"I--" Daniel blinked rapidly. "I am a stranger to you."  
  
"Not so strange." Ernst turned to Sam. "I believe the standard number for your team is four members."  
  
"Four is the minimum," Sam said. "Some of the other teams have more depending on their roles."  
  
"Four seems like a start." Ernst stood up. "Pardon me for a moment. While we have no gate yet, we might as well be prepared. I have to radio back to someone in Haven perfect for such a jaunt."  
  
"Who are your thinking of?" Zeetha asked.  
  
+++++  
  
"Othar Trygvassen, GENTLEMAN SCOUTMAS--oh, Ernst, calling me because you are tempted back into tyranny? No?"  
  
Silence.  
  
" _I see. I never did see us working together, old enemy. But you have reformed nicely. Just...one question. Are they all considered acceptable targets?"_  
  
Silence.  
  
" ** _Oh good. It will be a pleasure to work with you after all._** "


	6. Gone Fishing

Jack loved fishing. There was nothing better than sitting on the dock by the pond behind his cabin. He could stay there for hours casting his line and sipping from a can of suds chilled from an ice-filled cooler. He would never admit to being into woo-woo crystal-and-bong philosophy. There was something Zen to watching ripples spread out as the sinker and hook plunged into the water. That was why he ensured that every season his pond was free of fish. Catching fish meant the hassle of reeling them in, gutting them afterward, and all that. Sarah had made it very clear that her wifely duties ended well before taking care of anything he caught. It was all catch-and-release these days, anyway. All you were doing was harassing a dumb animal.  
  
One had to make concessions in the name of national duty. So that was why he was sitting by an ornamental pond in what had been Qetesh's pleasure garden with a rod and reel from Admiral Sanaa's mecha-narwhal. The hooks and sinker had barely broken the surface before there was a tug on the line. Annoying as hell, honestly. But this was a business meeting. Jack reeled in a big, fat golden fish that he handed to Nefertiti. The former handmaiden now wore the uniform of Krosp's Guard: a Zouave-style get-up of baggy red pants, a matching red fez with golden tassel, and a scarlet greatcoat with enough tasteless gold braiding and frogging to be rejected by a blind Jaeger. The other four guardswomen in her squad stood at shoulder arms with the rifles that the Heterodyne was giving out to the locals: single-shot rolling blocks in the 7mm cartridge that was the standard round used by both Diasporan nations. Jack had personally inspected them to make sure the actions were open and chambers were empty.  
  
The aptly-named Nefertiti checked the fish against a clipboard with a sheet of paper with big silhoeuttes of various fish in green and red-with-a-line circles. She cut a piece off and tossed it into the hopper of a little device. A few seconds later, a steel outline of a clenched fist with a thumb sticking up popped out. Only then did she cut the fish into sashimi. Jack tried hard to avoid crossing his legs. The handmaidens that Krosp had saved had done things with knives to any Jaffa left alive by the Jaegers. Bloody, nasty things of the sort that you heard rumours about what Afghani women did to captured Soviet soldiers. That and the entire accidental-marriage incident on Argos had killed any temptation when she offered to show appreciation for covering for the fuzzball during the battle. She still smiled up at him as she fed the sashimi strip by strip to Krosp, one side of his body a mass of burn scars, who sat in a pillow in Jack's lap.  
  
"So you're telling me I could toddle down to the corner store," Jack said, flicking out an unbaited hook. "The shopkeeper would sell me a bottle of nerve gas, no questions asked."  
  
"That was handled in the days of the Old Masters by traders bent or crazy enough to visit Mechanicsburg." Krosp chewed slowly as the fish strip. "When the Boys tried to end it, the Blood Circle just went underground--literally in some cases--or worked out of back rooms and 'a guy in an alley.'"  
  
"I grew up in Minnesota," Jack said. "I was born in Chicago. I heard enough family lore about some O'Neills who worked for the Outfit, the mafia that pretty much ran the streets."  
  
"The Blood Circle wasn't a bunch of backwoods Sicilian extortionists or _camorristi_ ," Krosp scoffed. "The Blood Circle stayed in Mechanicsburg. They were still the royalty of the Europan crime world. They fenced the plunder that the Heterodynes brought back. They ransomed hostages--that's why they adapted to tourism so well--back to their families."  
  
"Traded slaves?" Jack asked with distaste. "We ended that back in 1865."  
  
"No, the Heterodyne attitude was that what was theirs was theirs" Krosp shifted uncomfortably. "A captive either ended up an experimental subject or working the farms in the vassal villages. The skilled ones who were hunted down on raids became the townspeople."  
  
"Peachy. So I guess that when the Heterodyne didn't have any work for them, the locals contracted to outsiders?"  
  
"Bingo. They had to keep their skills....sharp." Krosp flashed his fangs. "The Heterodynes didn't mind them trading weapons to their potential victims. The Old Masters liked giving opponents a sporting chance."  
  
"Your 'vassal' doesn't seem the type to let them go back to the old ways." Jack watched the floater bobbing in the water. "So they are all entirely-legitimate businesspeople now."  
  
"Word is, the old guard had a cockamamie plan to kill Agatha and her consorts," Krosp admitted. "They thought the Castle and the Jaegers would be fine with it as long as the heirs were raised in the Old Ways. Stupid. A reform faction lead by the current Blood Circle president retired the conspirators. Hadrian Greenclaw's solid."  
  
"So he's the one to talk to about 'business'," Jack said.  
  
"Hadrian runs the business community," Krosp said. He nibbled another bit of fish. "They mostly sell tools, coffee, and medicine to the Qeteshi in the Goblet cities. But you? They are going to raise a shrine to the Red Cathedral to you, pal. You are bringing them an entire planet needing the stuff they really like making."  
  
"They won't be thanking me that much." Jack shuddered. "Not when they have to deal with Pentagon procurement. Or the Boeing and LockMart lobbyists."  
  
"Those some kind of legion of hideous abominations?"  
  
"Close enough," Jack said. "So where you have business and crime, you have politicians."  
  
"That would be the von Mekkans, the Seneschals," Krosp said. "Current Seneschal is Vanamonde. He takes care of the town and the tributary territories. Greaser of the wheels of the machinery of state, shaker of hands while holding a dagger behind his back with the other."  
  
"Good?"  
  
"No, he's a pol. But yeah, he's effective. Ran the place undercover from a coffee shop during the Baron's reign." Krosp winced when wind blew over his burns. "The Seneschals are crooked, but not corrupt. They have one job: maintaining the town to be ready on a moment's notice to satisfy the whims of the resident lunatic on the hill."  
  
"Who runs external affairs?" Jack asked "Some sort of privy cabinet that takes care of everything outside the town?"  
  
"The Jaegergeneral Council," Krosp answered. "Trade negotiations, diplomacy, foreign intelligence, and of course war. The Heterodynes were never at peace with anyone for long. So the Jaegergenerals drifted into dealing with outside powers by default."  
  
"These guys would be the oldest and most cunning of the bunch." Jack groaned. "Great. These are the survivors who stopped fighting and started thinking, aren't they?"  
  
"Precisely. Who--who else?" Krosp panted. "Mittelmind and the Collegium, the surviving inmates and captured Sparks they stuck an old peanut warehouse. Moloch--do _not_ disrespect the chief minion, not a political bone in his body but everyone from Agatha down to the sewer rats will hate you--"  
  
"That's enough, fuzzball." Jack handed the shivering cat to Nefertiti. "His high kittiness needs some rest."  
  
"Wait! I didn't tell you about the Castle--"  
  
Jack shifted over to a bench besides a burbling fountain that was properly devoid of distractions. He flicked the line out as he contemplated Earth's shiny new potential allies. Frickin' hell, they hadn't discovered Dimensionally-Displaced Space Latveria. Mechanicsburg was far, far more complicated than that. He was not nearly the geek Sam was. He had still had read his share of comics as a kid and on deployment when a young buck. Latveria was a podunk Eastern European backwater without Doctor Doom. He would consider Mechanicsburg a dangerous regional power even with the Heterodynes dead until they came back for a major crossover event. Krosp's potted history of the place had mentioned that Baron Wulfenbach had had to send in literal disarmament teams every so often to keep the place defanged.  
  
The Mechanicsburgers was the screwiest, shadiest bunch that Jack had ever encountered. And he had worked with a whole bunch of mercenaries, crime lords, and dodgy guerrillas in his time in special ops. He had never had to train death-squad members like some of the poor bastards in the Green Berets had had to do. But you work black ops for a living, you learned to squelch your gag reflex to get the mission done. Jack envisioned the executed Jaffa thankfully now on the other side of the pleasure garden wall. You even had to stomach that. The Heterodyne's crew really took the cake, though. Daniel would probably rhapsodize about them as a case study. Jack just knew they were trouble. These weren't the usual tinpot dictators that America had had to work with during the Cold War. This was a tight, disciplined nation-state with close to a thousand years to refine piracy and criminality to an art-form. The hard boys in the Lubyanka would have thought them hard cases back in the old days.  
  
What choice did they have, though? Jack gloomily considered Earth's strategic position: up a sewage outlet without a paddle. Some mid-ranked Goa'uld could show up with a ha'tak one day out of the blue. Then it would be game-over unless they had the same wacky luck of Daniel happening to duck sideways to reality for a while to snag those gate co-ordinates. The allies they had spent over a year searching for were duds. Nox were pacifists. Tollans had justifiably concluded they were violent, sneaky primitives. The Asgard thought the people of Earth had interesting brains. That was nice. But so far, no-one had offered to hand them a garden hose to fight the five-alarm fire that was about to engulf six billion people. Would it be too much to ask for a half-empty dixie cup of piss to toss on the flames?  
  
**Squeak-squeak**  
  
Jack calmly jiggled the line.  
  
**SNAP**  
  
He did not seem to notice the reflection in the fountain pond of the huge claw hovering over his head.  
  
**GRA---**  
  
Sighing, Jack seized the articulated telescoping armature that supported the four-fingered claw. He twisted it just so as he yanked down. Two high-pitched childish screams dopplered past him as two small forms arced over his head into the fountain. There was a splash worthy of a depth charge. A somewhat singed green shako with a trilobite floated towards him. Swimming in pursuit of it was the Lady Heterodyne's Mini-Me. The little girl stood up--her green pinafore soaked through--as Jack plucked the shako out of her reach. She bared a set of fake fangs while a auburn-haired kid trudged through the water to her side. He wore the same sort of suit that the Zinzer guy did--frock coat and trousers--with a little derby clamped onto his head. Both of them were pretty close in their features. Both had little trilobite lockets at their throats.  
  
Jack ignored the twinge in his heart as he glowered at them in his best "you have failed me, airman" fashion.  
  
"You speak English?" Jack saw their incomprehension. He switched languages. "You speak, ah, Qeteshi?"  
  
"Giff me back my hat, fool!" the girl stomped her feet.  
  
"Ah. No." Jack raised a brow "Ya know this was a bad plan."  
  
"Of course we did!" the boy shouted. "We were supposed to stay in the Castle. But someone decided to sneak aboard Mamma's flagship in a crate!"  
  
"Hyu did not have to follow me, Damien!"  
  
"I needed to keep you out of trouble, Judith!" Damien clamped his hands about her throat. "I was wrong! I have to strangle you into submission to do that."  
  
"It vas your stupid claw that didn't vork!" Judith beat at him with tiny yet furious fists. "I was going to go for his ankles!"  
  
"Impetuous wanna-be jaeger!"  
  
"Devious little sneaky veasel!"  
  
The two children disappeared under the surface.  
  
There was a froth of bubbles.  
  
“Troublesome children,” came a throaty voice with a hint of steam from a kettle in it.  
  
“Ah.” Jack glanced back. And up. “Any relation to the fuzzball?”  
  
“Merely in form.” The massive cat-shaped robot had a Cheshire grin welded onto its muzzle. “Otillia, Muse of Protection.”  
  
“Colonel Jack O’Neill, not edible.” Jack glanced at the diminishing number of bubbles. “Shall I--”  
  
“If you would be so kind.”  
  
“You betcha.” Jack hefted the hat-snatching claw.  
  
Well, it was not too different than a rod and reel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of plot, Hadrian was in Mechanicsburg visiting his family in the sub-timeline that this Agatha came from. The Ivo Sharktooth side-story played out the same a year after the Experiments were born due to the Blood Circle old guard looking at a defenseless mainland and thinking "we could just go back to the Old Days and take it for ourselves..."


	7. Protective Detail

"Two brass knuckles, a cosh, a slingshot, three sets of fake fangs--" The Colonel rummaged through the pile of weapons on the table. "Give her another shake, Teal'c"

"I am unsure if this is appropriate child-rearing behavior among the Tau'ri." The Guardian nonetheless shook Judith one more time. A wooden sword fell to the ground. "I stand corrected, O'Neill."

"Regular little Denise the Menace, isn't she?" The Stargazer said. "Damien is clean save for a multi-tool and a rubber mallet."

"This one`s more of a Wednesday." The Colonel added the dussack and the mallet to the pile. "Here they all are, ma'am,"

"Place them into my mouth." Otilia opened her maw wide. When she swallowed, the cache was sent into one of her confinement cells for troublesome students.

"What big teeth you have," The Chronicler said.

"Don't worry, we'll keep these hellions safe," The Colonel said. "They are now the newest Civil Air Patrol cadets of the Mechanicsburg Junior Woodchuck Flight."

"Now, children, obey your superiors," Otilia hissed. "I am off to inform your mother of your escapades."

Otilia faded away. The Heterodyne had incorporated mechanisms within her akin to those of the old secret police of Mechanicsburg. Some lessons were best taught as surprises, after all. She allowed the smile of her form's metallic fangs to hang in midair before having it disappear as well. Much of her humor from the days of old had returned to her once she had been freed from the prison of meat that had been Von Pinn. She permitted herself a silent chuckle as Miss Judith shivered. The girl was the most worrisome of the lot. Lars was achingly akin to Master William: throwing himself into peril while somehow escaping intact. Damien's worship of Moloch von Zinzer made him the least of Otilia's concerns. Judith was a delicate case. She was no Lucrezia or Euprhrosynia. She was brave beyond all girls of her age. Yet, she was too enamored of power without an understanding of its responsibilities.

That was why she had chosen the Americans as Judith's tutors. Otilia had quietly observed the newcomers after the Heterodyne had requested they be placed under protection. It had taken merely a moment's study to conclude this "SG-1" was entirely capable of the task themselves with only minimal intervention on her part. The test she had set for the Colonel had proven he had the cunning to deal with Miss Judith's antics. She had not missed how angry he had become about the pile of weapons taken from her. There was an old failure there: a child, an unsecured hazard, and the guilt that she knew all too well. This was one who would not fail again. The Stargazer was another matter. Otilia had perused the woman's journal written to this Cassie. Not a mother, no. She was a parent all the same with another raising the child as the Clays had the Heterodyne. The Guardian had shared a silent moment of communion with her. He was the minion who had defied his Master for Good to stand sentinel over his friends. The Chronicler was so like Master Barry that she might have wept had this form had tears. Hah. Already, he was addicted to saving priestesses and princesses.

Otilia slipped among the unsuspecting people within the palace complex. Here and there, probabilities and threat assessments coalesced into judgements that removed certain hazards without overt interference. Letting her cloak slip a touch to attract the attention of a gardener to an unattended rake; a patient's chart placed just so to attract the attention of a nurse,--such quiet little things were within her remit. She had often done so to protect her king's life against threats. In extremis, she had dealt with the matter personally. To be a Muse of Protection was also to know how to defeat protections. The elaborate fencing that she demonstrated as a performance was a cover for the single swift thrust in the dark. In her steam-cat body, she preferred something of the subtlety of the feline in dealing with matters.

Of course, should "Von Pinn" need to live again, this body was more than capable of that as well.

Otilia found their mother in what had once been the goddess' inner sanctum. The damage from the attack had been swiftly repaired by the Heterdyne's minions. The people of Mechanicsburg were well-acquainted with the task of fixing a blown-up lab after a Master or Mistress' had had an unexpected experimental result. In the small hall was a working court of Qeteshi notables conversing with Mechanicsburg officials. Old Carson von Mekkan in his wheelchair chatted with the newly-established _Heri-tep a'a sepat_ Aten who now governed Qetesh's Jewel. His personal guard bearing plasma-lances captured in the battle were posted about the room. An equal number of Jaegers guarded the room besides each of Aten's men. Several of them leered at her as she passed. Hrrrrrmph. Incorrigible.

The Heterodyne sat atop the dais at the right hand of the so-called goddess. Otilia could not hold back a subsonic rumble that caused a knot of Qeteshi merchant-councillors imported from the Goblet cities to shiver. The figure sitting on the throne with Qetesh's sigil worked into the high back had a long-overdue lesson awaiting her. It was not the accursed Dupree who was in control at the moment. Another monster inhabited the body. All of Otilia's being focused on how to intervene if the smiling demon decided to strike. The Heterodyne chatting with the goddess on a throne forged from the armor of Ba'al's Jaffa had her seemingly-harmless scepter pointed a bit off to the side from the creature to her left. Qetesh's eyes flicked every so often down to see if the Heterodyne's aim wavered.

It did not.

"--am ever so glad you agreed to a Jubilee," the Heterodyne said. "A year where no-one may be enslaved and it is a good act to free one's chattel is the perfect celebration of your deliverance from bondage."

"I am surprised you did not have a general emancipation declared," Qetesh said, eyes ablaze. "Perhaps you might even part the seas to lead them all to freedom."

"That would cause massive unrest," the Heterodyne said. She grimaced. "It will take decades to fully end it all."

"You should avoid entanglements such as that," Qetesh said. "I am perfectly willing to grant you your own...peculiar ideas in the realm I have graciously granted to you as pharoah in her own right."

"How good of you." The Heterodyne drummed a tattoo with her fingers on the cane. "I would call us more like fellow queens. One helping the other in her time of need."

Otilia whispered to the Heterodyne in Old Mekk.

"Ah, pardon." The Heterodyne rose. "I simply must check on something."

The goddess watched the Heterodyne leave with fists almost crushing the armrests of her throne.

"Insolent little--"

"--who has saved you from being enslaved by a rival god." Otilia allowed her faceplate to shift into view. "Who has ensured that none of your 'loyal' lords killed you when you were helpless. One who has created a provisional government to watch over your holdings."

"Another of her horrors." Qetesh studied Otilia with interest. "A finely-crafted one, mind."

"My original body was finer still," Otilia said. "I was and am a counselor of sorts to rulers. For your...protection, I advise you curb your anger."

"Or shall my head grace a spike?"

"The one who is trapped in you deserves that." Otilia grinned in her own way. "Hello, Captain Dupree. It is Von Pinn. I assure you that in time we will continue the conversation that the Baron interrupted. It is about pain and the treatment of children."

"My, you have her actually screaming." Qetesh sighed in pleasure. "Never fear, watcher. We gods can be a patient lot. I can endure this for generations if need be. It is your pharoah who should be worried."

"Who from?" Brass hackles rose.

"Ba'al. She humiliated him in a way even I at Selenis did not manage." Qetesh laughed cruelly. "She will be too busy fleeing from his inevitable revenge to bother me when I retake my rightful place on this world."

"I see." Otilia considered. "Let me say that, on that day, I will ensure that you are safe."

"How nice." Qetesh chuckled. "So willing to change sides? You would be a magnificent ornament of my court."

"It is something of my duty. You will be made very, very safe indeed."


	8. Ain't Misbehaving (Much)

Judith did not hate baths. She loved bathing with Mamma and her Poppas when it was family wash time. There was one in the huge tub in Momma's chambers after every family dinner. Mamma and Poppas Gil and Tarvek would put on bathing costumes before taking her and her brothers in a steaming pool full of bubbles and float toys. One time, Poppa Gil had rigged the bath to become a wave pool! They had ended up halfway to the Gallery of Interesting Sharp Things that time. Lars had surfed all the way on an old shield that Poppa Tarvek later used to beat Poppa Gil over the head with. After bath would come story-time and cuddles with her parents and the ritual of being chased back into the nursery after trying to break out. Some nights, one of her Poppas or even Mamma might not be there. But there was one every night.  
  
What Judith hated was being ordered into a bath. It was so unfair! They had gotten dunked in the fountain by the American colonel. Three days of dirt from hiding in the airship should have come off while she was fighting with Damien underwater. However, Judith had not said a word when Mamma had come into the main tent of the American's camp. She had simply looked at her and her brother--sitting on stools, still damp from the dunking--with an expression that had nearly sent Judith into tears. Mamma had never had that look around her and her brothers even at the worst of their mischief. This was the look that Mamma kept for Sparks who had really, really gotten her angry. That was the sort of angry that got those Sparks bell-jarred for a day and their lab privileges revoked.  
  
A camp tub with integral boiler had been brought in by one of the monsters bearing the Heterodyne sigil. There had not even been any bubble bath or float toys. There had simply been two bars of soap given to them. Mamma had not even joined them in the tub. She sat there watching them, so amazing in her "war-queen" outfit, while they scrubbed themselves clean. Damien would not even look at her. Well. She maybe had convinced him to come down from the airship. But asking one of the crew to tell Mamma they were there would have meant breaking cover! Only Judith was beginning to think that all that talk about her plans being suboptimal because she was six years old might have something to it. Now she had lost her hat. Worse, she--she had lost Mamma's trust--  
  
"And what did we learn today?" Mamma worked shampoo into Judith's tangled hair.  
  
"That sneaking off is bad and my sister is an idiot," Damien spat out.  
  
"Your sister is not stupid," Momma said. "Irresponsible, mind you. Come here, Damien."  
  
"Der Kestle let us go." Judith continued where Mamma had left off. "It said it would be educational. Learning is always important. You said so."  
  
"The Castle likes its lessons," Mamma said, working on an auburn lock stiff with grease. "One lesson might be 'watching your sibling die teaches the survivor to stay in its halls until it is ready.' _And I am not ready to inter either of you next to my late brother, so next time_ ** _ask me rather than the Castle._** "  
  
Damien hugged Judith close as she burst in angry, humiliated tears.  
  
"No more Jaegering for a month," Momma pronounced. She squatted before the tub at Experiment-height. Lukewarm water from the tap poured over their heads. "And both of you will be assigned to Herr Dolokhov's office as pages when not assisting our new American friends."  
  
Judith and Damien both whimpered at serving under the singularity of ennui that was Poppa Gil's private secretary.  
  
"As for myself, I am done adventuring for a while," Agatha said. "I seem to have some Experiments that bear more watching. Did Lars know?"  
  
"A little. He told us before you left he had to abstain from mischief," Damian said. "One of us had to be Heterodyne with you gone. He said it was Judith's turn to _get me into the dumbest--_ oowwwww."  
  
"You have to be careful about thinking too fast." Momma looked very sad. She adjusted the lockets on their bands around both of their necks. "Breathe in. Breathe out. Ground yourself."  
  
"You knew all along we were here," Judith said.   
  
"Of course,Gil and Tarvek had you under permanent watch the second I got onto the plane." Momma lifted them out of the tub. She began toweling them both dry. "We simply could not spend the time to extract you from the airship, then put out the ensuing fire, when you snuck on board. That was why Otilia had to abandon her duties to all the children under her watch to protect you."  
  
Judith winced. She had interfered with the education of future minions!  
  
"I am still glad you're here." Momma embraced them in her strong arms. "All I could think of when Ba'al had me at his feet was that he might take you from me. _He is going to burn for decades when I catch him._ "  
  
"Can we help?" Judith and Damien said.  
  
"We can dissect his symbiote together." Momma sighed. "I have to head back and deal with the Goddess of Snooty Entitlement. I will be back later for storytime."  
  
Judith felt a little less terrible for that. Story time was sacred. Momma had read to them every night she had been on Uncle Ernst's galley. She did the funniest sound effects! Judith had laughed and laughed when listening to how the Jaeger Who Nearly Had Stolen Andronicus' Hat had gulped down his horse chomp chomp CHOMP! Judith resolved to be a Good Girl for a whole--um. No. A month might be pushing it. Maybe she could be Acceptable for that long. Then a slowly degrading spiral into everyday mischief spread over two months. Momma helped both of them into the uniforms they would be wearing as Civil Air Patrol cadets. Bleah. Judith hated being civil! But the American colonel had defeated her. So she would wear the dark-blue dress and light blue shirtwaist. Damien grumbled when he had to exchange his minion's costume for trousers and shirt of the same pattern. At least she was allowed to wear her steel-toed boots! They even had hats--odd, wedge-shaped caps like a squashed fez without the tassel.  
  
The huge alien warrior who she had seen about was waiting for them outside. Judith tried not to drool over his magnificent hat. She had eavesdropped on the Jaegerkin gossiping about how this Teal`c had won his uniform piece by piece in combat. Judith was not nearly toff enough to challenge someone who had fought Vole. Teal'c inclined his head a few millimeters. Sighing, Judith snapped the sort of salute that she had seen Poppa Gil's soldiers do. It seemed to satisfy the alien warrior. She and Damien followed him like ducklings behind a velociraptor as he lead them to the American embassy's camp. Left-right left-righ. Left-hop-right. Left-hop-skip-right. Left-hop-skip-pirouette-rig-- Oooof. Judith smiled sweetly up at Teal`c after she bumped into him. Was he buying it? It was hard to tell. He looked a bit sad like Momma for some reason. He straightened her hat before continuing on. Judith marched properly aside from trying to trip up her brother a pseudo-random number of steps and dealing with his retaliatory rib-elbowing.  
  
She was behaving!  
  
Tea'c herded the two of them into the large tent at the center of the American camp. The other Americans were gathered about a camp table. The _kapiten_ was waving a sheaf of papers about while the _oberst_ rolled his eyes. Hmmmphhh. That was a weird thing to see. The blonde _kapiten_ should have been in charge of the expedition. Or the obviously heroic explorer sitting beside them perusing a papyrus scroll. Judith tilted her head to see what it was. Ohhhh. She knew that one! That was her ancestor Satyricus's _One Thousand And Fifty Three Point Seventy Eight Delights_. She had snuck a peek at it once before Momma had dragged her away from that shelf in the library. Judith didn't see what was delightful. The pictures there showed people in some kind of horrible torment. Doctor Jackson's ears were bright-red. The _oberst's_ gaze fell upon her. Judith and Damien stood at attention.  
  
"<\--transdimensional harmonics could be the key to a faster-than-light drive-->" Captain Carter said. The English was incomprehensible to Judith. The obvious fugue wasn't. "<\--the man has a titanic mind, we have to bring him in-->"  
  
"<He and his cousin go through SGC training like everyone else,>" Colonel O'Neill said.  
  
"<We actually have training?>" Doctor Jackson said. "<I thought we were making it up as we go along. Jack, these people have combat archaeology courses. They are going to be training us.>"  
  
"<Making it up as you go along is a fine American tradition,>" Colonel O'Neill retorted. He glanced at the two Experiments. "<For crying out loud, put away the porn.>"  
  
"<Whoops!>"  
  
"Alright, let's see what we have here," the Colonel said in Qetetshi. He looked them up and down. "Put away those halos, kids. I am not fooled."  
  
"You're right, he is wily and dangerous," Damien muttered.  
  
"The Lady Heterodyne's children were not overly troublesome," Teal'c said. "No more than many a young Jaffa learning from a Master."  
  
"Bra'tac found you a handful, eh?" The Colonel nodded. "So, your mom agreed we're making you Civil Air Patrol. That means you're auxilliaries of our _Luftwaffe._ "  
  
"Minions in fancy clothes," Judith grumbled.  
  
" _Gophers,_ actually," Captain Carter said. "Go for this, go for that. Along with some drill."  
  
"I shall conduct you in such matters," Teal'c said. "I have read extensively of the deportment and weapons handling rituals of the Tau'ri."  
  
"Must have been a slow night," Colonel O'Neill said. "There'll be some dishwashing and policing the grounds. Miss Kitty will handle your lessons."  
  
Judith and Damien considered it all.  
  
Still better than helping Boris.  
  
"If you two would not mind, could you help me your people's language?" Doctor Jackson switched to Old Mekk. "I _am fluent in our earth's version There must be big divergences given that you developed an urban, scientific culture instead of the Dyne Tribe's rural one."_  
  
" _Me! Me!_ " Judith said delightedly. _"I am the best of all of us in the old tongue._ "  
  
"Congratulations, you're in charge of Wednesday here." Colonel O'Neill turned to Captain Carter. "Unless you want her."  
  
"I think I'll let Daniel take care of the girl this time around." Captain Carter nodded to Damien. "Otilia said you spent a lot of time with your father working on his planes. I'd like to get an understanding of how far your people have advanced into heavier than air flight."  
  
"Sure!"  
  
"And tonight we can have a campfire," Colonel O'Neill said. "Sing songs, makes s'mores, listen to stories. For now, you two probably got enough grief from you mom. So you can put up your tent and wait until dinner."  
  
"I shall instruct you in preparing your camp," Teal'c said. e took a bundle of cloth and poles under one arm  
  
Huh. This...might not be so horrible after all.  
  
Although really, what stories could compare to those of her Momma and Poppas? 


End file.
